This invention relates to seats for use in ride vehicles having a sound-producing speaker and, more particularly, to a seat for use in a vehicle or the like having an acoustic waveguide for channeling sound from a speaker to an occupant's ears.
Many attractions at amusement and theme parks throughout the country have ride vehicles which transport occupants throughout the attraction. These ride vehicles typically are constructed without a top or windows, primarily to give the occupants an unrestricted view of the attraction. Depending upon the nature of the attraction, it may be desirable to tell a story, provide music or convey other sounds to the occupants as the ride vehicle moves throughout the attraction.
However, the inherent nature of most amusement ride vehicles and the seat construction described above tends to hinder intelligible sound conveyance or other communication with the occupants. While communication in such vehicles is generally carried out by use of an appropriate sound system including loudspeakers mounted on the ride vehicle, the ability to provide effective communication with good quality and fidelity is nevertheless difficult. This difficulty results primarily from the environment of the attraction which often exposes the occupant to noise generated by operation of the vehicle itself of other background noises, and vehicle design constraints generally make it impracticable to mount an appropriate loudspeaker in close proximity to the occupant's ears.
One common sound system in use today includes a small, low profile loudspeaker mounted on the ride vehicle in proximity to the occupant. However, these small loudspeakers typically suffer from an inherent lack of speech and sound intelligibility, primarily because such loudspeakers tend to achieve low acoustical conversion efficiency, since the loudspeakers tend to be small in size or low in quality. Vehicle design constraints also make it difficult and sometimes impossible to position these loudspeakers in sufficiently close proximity to the occupant's ears, and often these speakers are located in a side panel or other location that is not sufficiently close. Use of higher quality loudspeakers is sometimes impractical since there usually is insufficient space or the speakers must be mounted in a position even more remote from the occupant's ears. Such remote mounting decreases, not increases, the signal-to-noise ratio of the communication signal, and excessive power usually must be applied to the loudspeakers to produce the desired sound pressure level at the occupant's ears, which in turn, produces greater distortion.
Another solution to the foregoing problems has been to supply individual headsets to be worn by the occupants. However, this solution often is impractical, because these headsets are inconvenient to use and maintain and are susceptible to damage and theft. Moreover, in high throughput attractions, occupants may be hesitant from a sanitation and hygiene standpoint to wear a headset worn by a previous occupant, and it is generally impractical to clean such headsets and is presently quite expensive to replace them after each use.
Accordingly, there has existed a definite need for an amusement ride seat having a sound system capable of conveying intelligible sound to an occupant under conditions of noise, which does not require the occupant to wear headsets or the like, and which is capable of use with existing ride vehicles and other structures where it would otherwise be impractical to position high quality audio speaker equipment in proximity to the occupant's ears. The present invention satisfies these needs and provides further related advantages.